Best of the year:

• Fiction - Cooking with Fernet Branca, by James Hamilton Paterson
• Non-Fiction - Map of a Nation, by Rachel Hewitt
• Music - The Film Music Prom
• Exhibition - Memento Park, Budapest
• Food and Drink - The Boar's Head Gaudy

There was some very heavy rain and at least one bought of thunder overnight. Due to train disruption (reason unknown) at Reading, we met up with angry_marmot a few minutes behind schedule before going for an enjoyable lunch at Kimchee, which I'd definitely recommend. After lunch it was on to the British Museum for the Beyond El Dorado exhibition. It wasn't ( Read more... )

Just over a week ago, when it was cold but dry, we went to see the Mughal India exhibition at the British Library. The exhibitions there aren't on the "blockbuster" scale of some central London venues, but I often find those rather crowded. Nevertheless there was quite a lot to see ranging from approximately the sixteenth to nineteenth century. I ( Read more... )

All GallAt various points we'd contemplated Portugal, Switzerland, and northern Germany as possible holiday destinations, so it was natural that we'd end up booking relatively late on for a week in Paris. The start was not auspicious; between the Metro and our hotel, I heard two car doors slamming, and looked up to see two men running, one chasing ( Read more... )

First of all, we went to the Royal Academy's exhibition of Paintings from the Clark. It's a fairly small exhibition but the pieces are well chosen. I particularly liked the landscapes and still lifes. When we emerged it seemed that we had been lucky enough to escape a heavy shower ( Read more... )

After abandoning an attempt earlier in the week, due to panic-buying of tickets, to go and see the David Hockney exhibition at the RA, this afternoon I've been to see the Jubilee exhibition at the Cartoon Museum. Even by their standards it's a small selection, though quite tightly packed in to one small room, and sadly there was no catalogue, but I ( Read more... )

2011 was not a good year personally, but in looking through my journal there have been some good things nevertheless.

Best of the year:

• Fiction - The Road Home, by Rose Tremain
• Non-Fiction - Red Plenty, by Francis Spufford (if you file it as non-fiction ... I find it a bit difficult to classify)
• Music - Bernard Haitink and Emanuel Ax's Brahms ( Read more... )

Today we went to the Royal Academy's Building the Revolution exhibition. Curiously, the fog was quite dense all the way from Reading as far as about Ealing, whereupon it suddenly cleared, and central London was actually quite sunny at times ( Read more... )

Today we visited the Cartoon Museum to see its Doctor Who exhibition. It's a small venue so it never takes all that long to go around. Most of the items are from DWM or its predecessors.

Afterwards we took in a couple of sections of the British Museum. uitlander will be particularly pleased to hear that I noted an illustration (in the Ancient Europe ( Read more... )

Dad visited this weekend on his way back from a holiday in Devon. He wanted to have a look around London, as it's years since he's been there, so we went to meet him on Sunday after lunch to go to the Cabinet War Rooms (now rebranded as the 'Churchill' War Rooms). Ironically, I didn't find the Churchill room extension all that engaging; it was a ( Read more... )